Japanese sewing pattern revisited

When Abner was nearly two, I made her the most adorable apron-y smock type thing from the Carefree Clothes for Little Girls sewing book (an English translation of the original Japanese publication). I loved that apron and Abner got heaps of use out of it until she was about four. Last night, with a little time on my hands and no access to a computer to otherwise waste my time with, I sewed up a brand new one for my much bigger five-year-old little girl.

Unlike the first version, I did finish my seams with a proper hem this time and I also added the front pocket which I'd skipped on the first one. For the button, the loop seemed easier than the rigmarole of all that button holes usually entail. Please ignore the absolutely wavy stitching lines as for the life of me, I can't seem to wrestle my sewing machine into submission these days - it has a mind of its own!

I'm so happy I've dug out this book again. It wasn't until I cracked it open last night that I realised Abner is about to out-grow the patterns entirely! She's about to enter the no man's land of sewing pattern cuteness. You just don't see nearly as many patterns for bigger kids as you do for the preschool set.

It also dawned on me last night that I now work at a place where they actually teach Japanese (among about a billion other programmes) which means I can finally find someone to help me figure out the patterns in my other two Japanese sewing books - the ones that haven't been translated to English. I think those patterns are a bit bigger than the ones in Carefree Clothes, so there's still time to get some use out of them. Happy day!

Little miss Abner insisted on climbing the tree out front of our house to model her new top. I'm actually surprised our little tree still looks as naked as it does right now. With the exception of the last couple of days, it's been downright balmy around Dunedin and evidence of spring's arrival is everywhere - except in our front yard apparently.

I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge how quiet it's been on the Milkybeer blogging front lately. Obviously, stuff has been happening in our lives - Abner's been up to five-year-old type things, we've been exploring our new Kiwi home, and things are being sewn up on a regular basis even if I don't write about them here on the blog.

The truth is, now that I spend my days responsible for writing and posting content to a website read by hundreds (dare I say thousands?) of academically-minded (read as incredibly-adept-at-spotting-typos-and-grammatical-errors-and-therefore-rather-intimidating) individuals, I just don't feel like writing/posting one. more. thing. when I get home at night.

All that being said, now that I have almost two months under my belt at the new day job, I promise to get back to all things Milkybeer.